Towards the end of its development, the art assets of Desktop Dungeons have matured and it has become less reliant on palette swaps. For the most part, the remaining palette swaps come across as intentional variants rather than lazy reuse. However, there are a couple outstanding palette swaps that bug me. I'm wondering if there is any possibility of the following getting addressed:

Vampiric Blade / Really Big Sword: this one kinda sticks out like a sore thumb, since the palette swap itself is quite subtle and it's actually possible to prep both simultaneously.

Amulet of Yendor / Witchalok Pendant / Pendant of Mana / Spider Amulet: partially alleviated in the case of the Witchalok Pendant due to being a small item, but in all three cases blue is the dominant colour. Consider at very least a more diverse range of colours for a more distinguishable palette swap. (thanks Lujo for mentioning Spider Amulet)

Dwarven Gauntlets / Martyr Wraps: the colours are very similar and these are difficult to tell apart. The gloves of midas is also a palette swap, but its color scheme is very different so it's a non-issue.

Regular Shop / Potion Shop: as a red/green colour-blind gamer, I need to look carefully to tell these apart. If there is no intent of having different art, could the palette swap at least be made more obvious?

Bandits / Berserkers: these enemies appear identical, and occasionally you can get both the bandit and berserker boss. (thanks FDru for mentioning this)

Slayer Wand / Piercing Wand / Wand of Splosion: these are subtle palette swaps. Justified in the case of the Wand of Splosion due to how quickly it can enter and exit your inventory, but the other wands can sit in your inventory all game. (thanks Lujo for mentioning this)

Blacksmith Sword / Blade of Yin / Yang's Sword / Penance / Bound Blade / Dancing Sword (enemy): possibly one of the game's most over-used sprites. The obscurity of some of these items is a bit of a mitigating factor, but there are so many that it's a bit much. (thanks Lujo for mentioning this)

Last edited by Darvin on Fri Dec 13, 2013 11:20 pm, edited 4 times in total.

I agree with this topic. Palette swaps in general haven't come across as lazy because, well, graphics are about the least concern to me personally for a tile-based rogueliker puzzler (I would still play this were it ASCII, heh), but there are a few specific instances where it has caused me some brief confusion or irritation. Since I've at times held either in my locker, the close similarity between Yendor and Witchalok has caused me a couple of time to forget or mistake which one I have there at first glance. The other problem is the frequent re-use of sprites without even palette swapping for enemies with different stats or abilities - AFAIR this only comes up in the class challenges and puzzles (... and maybe a subdungeon or two, hello first-striking serpent), but it can be a bit of a headache with the mental associations you've built up during normal play. Some tweaked graphics or distinctly recoloured varieties would help in this case.

+1, stole the words right out of my mouth. It's too much to ask probably, but they aren't even pallete swaps, they look exactly the same (throphy considerations, I know), but havino one have an axe and the other the sword would be helpfull... Also, the most unsatisfying pallete swap as far as monsters go for me is deffinitely the thrall. The bandit has an nice sharp red sash, if he's killed and zombified why does the sash turn purple too? It makes him look like a cheap pallete swap rather than a monster (which is not the case for, say, sucubuss, and actually works well with goos in the slime pits)

Protect.exe is rare, but it's not even a pallete swap of the blacksmith badge.Mystera Scripture and Ritual Scroll from VGT have the exact same graphic (could ba a pallete swap instead).Wand of splosion isn't even a pallete swap of piercing ward (which is a decent pallete swap of the slayer wand).

There is another pink amulet, the Spiders Amulet which looks exactly like the 2 other pink amulets, very much like tha purple amulet and is the exact shape as the blue amulet.

Also, I'm not sure but isn't there like 3 different swords which look like the blacksmith "Sword"? The blacksmith sword, the bound blade (+15% attack, unconvertable) and unless penance from VGT has been changed (to the bound blade) it also looked identical. I'd love to be able to check, but I don't have the codex entries.

Last edited by Lujo on Fri Dec 13, 2013 11:32 pm, edited 3 times in total.

Yeah, the basic "sword" gets reused a lot. There the Sword, the Sword of Ying, Yang's Blade, Bound Blade, Penance, and the Dancing Blade (a monster that looks like an item). That's actually probably one of the most egregiously overused sprites!

Darvin wrote:Yeah, the basic "sword" gets reused a lot. There the Sword, the Sword of Ying, Yang's Blade, Bound Blade, Penance, and the Dancing Blade (a monster that looks like an item). That's actually probably one of the most egregiously overused sprites!

I whish there was an "Egregiously overused sword", could even be the old penance. You can't get rid of it! It's unconvertible!

I figure some of these "not even pallete swaps" should probably at least be pallete swaps so that reading the victory recap screen doesn't have you guessing even for the more obscure ones. I don't have much trouble differentiating even subtle colors (but I can see the problem for those who do), but using the same exact sprite has occasionaly confused me quite a bit. And i'm not talking about "worn out artifacts" versions of popular items, those are logical.

EDIT: Realizing that the dancing blade is not in fact an item in VGT was supposed to be a challenge I think, though, but being able to get misled in VGT like this isn't my idea of humor. Eh, still, it's a good one...

Courage Juice and STR Potion look exactly the same. Would use Orange myself, to associate it easier for rare potions like Tea and the Jadetooth Potion which are easy to link to berserker types. And more importantly:

Tea and Jadetooth potion look exactly the same. Maybe another bottle to distinguish them since they kind of do the opposite?

Cracked Amulet looks exactly the same as the other 4 identical amulets (well, it sorta makes sense that it's identical to yendor, but gives reason enough to make the others except Yendor at least be different color).

Crumbling Ward and Stone Sigil look exactly the same (yep, it's a "powerd down" version of the stone sigil, but having it as a pallete swap would be worth it as they are in fact rather different and the ward is in fact a strong prep on it's own - having one be gray might be good).

Oh I know it's the same sub, and the wiki gives all the formulae, I just don't recall if it tends to spawn in a certain direction and the wiki doesn't mention. But you say north and I seem to have a recollection of seeing it in both Shifting Passages and the Labyrinth, so you're probably right.